Scripture Reflections for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Saying yes is not just a one-and-done thing. We need to seek God’s counsel repeatedly so that we can continually take the steps to be a disciple of Christ.”

“It was the witness of these poor tenants, their ability to endure a suffering which I could not begin to imagine, let alone bear, and their hope for a better life that slowly allowed met to carry my own cross...it was their discipleship that motivated me to find my own; to take that preference for God.”

“The people in the gospel are following Jesus but not for the right reasons...They are looking for change but did not appreciate that following Jesus entailed the ultimate change of finding their way to God. They were looking for security in this life.”

“This stark way of speaking, characteristic of Jesus’s language and times, tells the crowds that, when the time comes to choose, we must put God and his Christ before everything we hold dear, even the very things we expect God and Jesus to preserve.”

“So whatever repulsive action or words we encounter this week, let us be careful how we respond and how we react, for it may reveal the preferences we are making or not making in our Christian lives”

“Good intentions are vital, but we all know how destructive they can be unless allied to sound reason and accurate perception. We have been given Christ as the sure foundation on which to build, and we have the grace of God to help us in our battle.”

“The cost of discipleship is the price of admission and it may seem high at times, it may seem high but it's nothing compared to the fruit that is reaped on the other side”

“in the measure that mother, or father, bother, or sisters have become in your life the supreme good, that's a nightmare. That's a problem. That's a huge stumbling block.”

“no spiritual person sets out to follow the will of God unless and until he's rid himself of attachments. Otherwise he will find zero success.”

“are we in that crowd of thousands following Jesus during happy times or are we willing to follow him all the way to the cross?”

“What makes us happy on the Biblical reading of things? Forgetting the ego and its needs and desires. Opening our eyes and our minds and our hearts and letting reality in. Breaking free of the prison of the ego and all of its treasure chest of possessions”

“Hate what the world tells you to love. Love what God tells you to do. That's peace.”

“One of the marks of sin is that we turn the gracious world around us into our possession. It usually comes from fear.”

“No one will enter heaven without acknowledging and renouncing every sin they have ever committed. This is necessarily the case, because attachment to sin is attachment to that which is not-God and not-love. And no one in heaven will be or can be still attached to not-God and not-love.”

“Complex problems do not have simple answers, but seeking God’s way through the troubles is a better way”

“If we aren’t aware of the cost of discipleship we may end up being mocked, although to be fair being mocked is itself part of the cost of discipleship”

“the cross is indispensably Christian; for a crossless Christian is a Christless Christian”

“We are made to learn about our world, our universe, and so to wonder what made it. And when we ask what made it, the desire for God is set in train, our hearts and minds on fire. We are made to want to know and so love the infinite God.”

“And in those families where you have some extra baggage – those families with discord and conflict and tension – sometimes you need to check that baggage and let God handle it, and don’t let it weigh you down. You’ve got enough to burden you; you don’t need more.”

“Jesus, the one to whom we go for rest from heavy burdens, teaches why we should prefer the burden of discipleship to that of sin.”

“Wisdom that is transmitted through actual grace is more perfect than all of the education that we can acquire through man made means.”

“voluntary poverty is about much more than living a simple material existence. It is about giving up self-centeredness for a greater good, what some might call the Kingdom of Heaven or the Body of Christ. One day we may even realize that the common good is actually our own individual greatest good.”